Serious as are the policy disagreements roiling Washington, none is as important as the structural distortion threatening constitutional equilibrium. Institutional derangement driven by unchecked presidential aggrandizement did not begin with Barack Obama, but his offenses against the separation of powers have been egregious in quantity and qualitatively different.

Regarding immigration, health care, welfare, education, drug policy and more, Obama has suspended, waived and rewritten laws, including the Affordable Care Act.
. . .
Some say the judicial branch should not intervene because if Americans are so supine that they tolerate representatives who tolerate such executive excesses, they deserve to forfeit constitutional government. This abstract doctrine may appeal to moralists lacking responsibilities.

So, do we have a coverup at the IRS? Has a crime been committed? I don’t know. What I do know is that I am deeply disturbed by all this.

Maybe it’s just sloppy record-keeping, which would be bad enough. Most of the government’s business is now conducted digitally, and those records need to be properly handled. Or is it worse? Is the IRS deliberately keeping things from the public? Excuse my cynicism, but the IRS’s penchant for secrecy is what led Tax Analysts, using the new Freedom of Information Act, to sue the agency in the 1970s to force it to release private letter rulings. There have been several subsequent lawsuits to pry records that should have been public out of the agency’s hands.
. . .
The exempt organization issue is now more than just fodder for conservative blogs. The IRS and the Treasury Department need to start being square with the American people and their Congress. Even if you hate the IRS — and I do not — a wounded and compromised tax collector (whether or not most of its wounds are self-inflicted) does no good for the country.

Because he’s been told that most of his life and now he listens to his own bullshit without interruption. And lots-o-rubes bought it. Twice.You just can’t fix stupid.

If you’ve gone to graduate or law school, you know the type. Very special little hothouse flowers.

It’s sad, yes, but America probably hasn’t fully grasped the terrifying truth about President Barack Obama’s upcoming State of the Union speech.

After this one, he has two more to go.

Two more? Ye gods!

The prospect of listening to him blah blah blah his way through three more of these annual speeches is enough to cause the nation to curl up on the floor in the fetal position and start breathing from a brown paper bag. The man is talking the country to death, and we can’t take anymore.

Never in the history of this country have we seen such a broad and coordinated abuse of the government’s power to threaten criminal prosecution and ruin the lives and livelihoods of people the president and his party see as political “enemies.” None of the victims above did anything that even smelled like a criminal act act (except, perhaps, D’Souza) before the state came crashing down with the inevitable and purposeful result of ruining their lives. Their only “offense” was publicly opposing the president’s agenda, and putting those dissenters through the goverment’s paces was the whole point.

Schumer argued at the Center for American Progress on Thursday that the Tea Party is built on a foundation of deception: “Wealthy, hard Right, selfish, narrow” elites have fooled regular Tea Partiers into hating government. Schumer’s premise is that Big Government is the friend of the regular guy, and only the selfish wealthy elites benefit from more economic freedom.

It seems relevant, then, that Schumer — a dedicated liberal — is the most important congressional Democrat when it comes to fundraising. Schumer headed the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee for the 2006 and 2008 elections.
. . .
Schumer, to fund his own elections, taps deep into the plutocracy he condemns. In the 2010 election, Schumer ran basically unopposed. Still he was the No. 1 Senate recipient of money from the insurance industry, private equity, hedge funds, Wall Street, real estate, the cable industry, and hospitals. Schumer was No. 3 in money from lobbyists, Hollywood, and mortgage bankers.

Schumer’s Senate office seems to have its own revolving door that exits straight onto K Street. He is tied for third place, in all of Congress, for having the most staffers in the Center for Responsive Politics’ revolving door database. Only Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., beat him on the revolving door scoreboard.

And Schumer knows how to profit from this revolving door action. In January 2007, when his party took charge of the Senate, he gathered some of America’s wealthiest hedge-fund managers in a Manhattan restaurant and told them, in effect, start lobbying and giving money to politicians.

A few months later, Schumer’s top banking staffer, Carmencita Whonder left for the K Street firm Brownstein Hyatt, which immediately picked up a handful of hedge fund and private equity clients. Whonder also became a volunteer fundraiser for Schumer, while other hedge fund millionaires raised money for Schumer’s DSCC.

“I’m pledging to cut the deficit by half by the end of my first term in office.”

“I’ll end the abuse of no-bid contracts once and for all.”

“No more illegal wiretapping of American citizens.”

“No more ignoring the law when it is inconvenient.”

“We’re not going to use signing statements to do an end run around Congress.”

“What can we do without Congress.”

Pretty sad when a politician can make George W. Bush look like a miser, Bill Clinton look like a paragon of virtue, Jimmy Carter look decisive, and Dan Quayle look like a brilliant genius.

“We can restore fiscal responsibility in Washington.”

Alas, the English language is not well equipped to capture the sensation I’m describing, which is why we must all thank the Germans for giving us the term “schadenfreude” — the joy one feels at the misfortune or failure of others. The primary wellspring of schadenfreude can be attributed to Barack Obama’s hubris — another immigrant word, which means a sinful pride or arrogance that causes someone to believe he has a godlike immunity to the rules of life.

The hubris of our ocean-commanding commander-in-chief surely isn’t news to readers of this website. He’s said that he’s smarter and better than everyone who works for him. His wife informed us that he has “brought us out of the dark and into the light” and that he would fix our broken souls. The man defined sin itself as “being out of alignment with my values.” We may be the ones we’ve been waiting for, but at the same time, everyone has been waiting for him. Or as he put it in 2007, “Every place is Barack Obama country once Barack Obama’s been there.”

He knows everything. And yet he seems to know nothing. He’s passionate about the details of domestic policy but wasn’t privy to the details of his own legacy law. He’s an academic with a command of every issue at once but seemingly only finds out what his administration is doing in news reports. He’s so brilliant every normal endeavor he’s tried has bored him, but he couldn’t bother to entertain himself with more than one monthly meeting on the make-or-break program of his presidency. He’s the captain of the Culture of Competency who has overseen the most incompetent rollout of an entitlement program in history.
. . .
He knows everything. And yet he knows nothing. . . . The animating feature of Obama’s leadership style is simply making pronouncements. Making them about things he knows, things he knows not, and waiting for everyone and everything to fall in line. And, when things don’t magically come together, he pronounces his disappointment and anger. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Demonstrators came from across the United States. Some wore tape across their mouths and masks, and dressed up as cameras. Others carried signs plastered with images of Snowden, and a giant blue and white parachute that read “constitutional rights not NSA mass spying.” Groups of protesters chanted slogans like, “They say wiretap, we say fight back,” and “Hey hey, ho ho, the NSA has got to go.” One person dressed up as Obama, held an “Obamacam” and posed in front of a model drone.

America is going through a transformation, on a scale that few people now realize. The last such fundamental change was from the rural and agrarian society of the Founding era (America 1.0) to the urban and industrial society which is now coming to an end (America 2.0).

That transition was disruptive and painful, but ultimately led to a better America.

We are now making a similar transition to a post-industrial, networked, decentralized, immensely productive America, with a more individualistic, voluntarist, anti-bureaucratic culture (America 3.0).

Today’s political regime is like legacy software, built for an earlier world.

Institutions of the 20th Century welfare state that once looked permanent are crumbling. The old operating system has been kludged so many times it won’t work much longer. It has to be replaced.

The time-worn liberal-progressive wisdom is simple: See a problem, create a government program to fix it.

The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

I reject the argument that the government is empowered to take our liberties — here, the right to privacy — by majority vote or by secret fiat as part of an involuntary collective bargain that it needs to monitor us in private in order to protect us in public. The government’s job is to keep us free and safe. If it keeps us safe but not free, it is not doing its job.

. . .

And, if all of this is not enough to induce one to realize that the Orwellian future is here thanks to the secret governments of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, Snowden also revealed that the NSA can hack into anyone’s mobile phone, even when it is turned off, and use each phone as a listening device and as a GPS to track whoever possesses it.

All of this — which is essentially undisputed — leads me to the question: Where is the outrage? I think the government has succeeded in so terrifying us at the prospect of another 9/11 that we are afraid to be outraged at the government when it claims to be protecting us, no matter what it does. C.S. Lewis once remarked that the greatest trick the devil has pulled off is convincing us that he does not exist. The government’s greatest trick has been persuading us to surrender our freedoms.

Will we ever get them back? The answer to that depends upon the fidelity to freedom of those in whose hands we have reposed the Constitution for safekeeping. At present, those hands are soiled with the filth of totalitarianism and preoccupied with the grasp of power. And they seem to be getting dirtier and their grip tighter every day.

A veteran Washington D.C. investigative journalist says the Department of Homeland Security confiscated a stack of her confidential files during a raid of her home in August — leading her to fear that a number of her sources inside the federal government have now been exposed.

In an interview with The Daily Caller, journalist Audrey Hudson revealed that the Department of Homeland Security and Maryland State Police were involved in a predawn raid of her Shady Side, Md. home on Aug. 6. Hudson is a former Washington Times reporter and current freelance reporter.

A search warrant obtained by TheDC indicates that the August raid allowed law enforcement to search for firearms inside her home.

The document notes that her husband, Paul Flanagan, was found guilty in 1986 to resisting arrest in Prince George’s County. The warrant called for police to search the residence they share and seize all weapons and ammunition because he is prohibited under the law from possessing firearms.

But without Hudson’s knowledge, the agents also confiscated a batch of documents that contained information about sources inside the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration, she said.

The U.S. individual health insurance market currently totals about 19 million people. Because the Obama administration’s regulations on grandfathering existing plans were so stringent about 85% of those, 16 million, are not grandfathered and must comply with Obamacare at their next renewal. The rules are very complex. For example, if you had an individual plan in March of 2010 when the law was passed and you only increased the deductible from $1,000 to $1,500 in the years since, your plan has lost its grandfather status and it will no longer be available to you when it would have renewed in 2014.

These 16 million people are now receiving letters from their carriers saying they are losing their current coverage and must re-enroll in order to avoid a break in coverage and comply with the new health law’s benefit mandates––the vast majority by January 1. Most of these will be seeing some pretty big rate increases.

President Obama claims that Republicans are busy probing “phony scandals.” But the sheer number of scandals suggests that misbehavior, abuse of power, and possibly corruption are not something being dreamed up by the GOP, but a defining characteristic of the Obama administration.

President Obama (in)famously said, “If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan” under the Affordable Care Act. As it turns out, not so much. Hundreds of thousands of Americans, it turns out, are receiving letters telling them that their existing coverage just isn’t good enough to satisfy the strict rquirements of the Obamacare law, and that they’ll have to sign up for new policies. Those new policies come with new stipulations, and new price tags. Which is to say, it doesn’t matter if you like your health care plan, since you probably can’t keep it.

On June 7, 1994, Bob Woodward was interviewed on C-SPAN about The Agenda. The discussion moved to Hillary Clinton, and Woodward said in emphatic tones, “I’d go so far as to say she’s a part of Bill Clinton’s brain.”

That is both the most extreme and the most accurate description of Hillary Clinton that anyone has yet offered. It is the only reason for which Hillary Clinton is a significant American figure. She has been flattered by the feminist movement, which, like New York Times columnist Anna Quindlen, imagines her to have a “great mind.” She has been abused by certain conservatives who, like Richard Nixon, believe that such an intelligent, self-assertive woman turns her husband into a “wimp.” Both those characterizations miss the mark. Hillary is a bright woman lawyer of the kind one sees by the dozens on CNN and C-SPAN, only they have earned their positions while she has married hers. Her actual importance lies in one realm alone. She is known to be a prop to her husband’s mind, and her husband is president of the United States.

To an inordinate degree Hillary Clinton thinks for Bill Clinton.
. . .
Hillary Clinton provides Clinton with certain narrow logical skills of which he is singularly bereft. This does not imply that she is Aristotle, any more than a seeing-eye dog is a cartographer. It implies only that as compared to Clinton, the blazing Bubba, Mrs. Clinton is on speaking terms with logic, and he cannot function without her.
. . .
[Hillary Clinton] is to [Bill] Clinton’s mind what a pacemaker is to a heart. She is, as Woodward says, a part of Bill Clinton’s brain. And she has been so for every millisecond of his political life.

The Clintons have never been able to separate the impulses to help others and to help themselves, turning noble philanthropic ventures into glitzy, costly promos for some future campaign (can you remember a time in human history when a Clinton wasn’t running for office?). And their “Ain’t I Great?!” ethos attracts the rich and powerful with such naked abandon that it ends up compromising whatever moral crusade they happen to have endorsed that month. That the Clinton Global Initiative is alleged to have bought Natalie Portman a first-class ticket for her and her dog to attend an event in 2009 is the tip of the iceberg. More troubling is that businessmen have been able to expand the profile of their companies by working generously alongside the Clinton Foundation.

The cynical might infer from the NYT piece that the Clintons are willing to sell themselves, their image, and even their Foundation’s reputation in exchange for money to finance their personal projects. In Bill’s case, saving the world. In Hillary’s case, maybe, running for president.

The Clintons are populists in the same way that Barack Obama is a Nobel prize winner.

[Hillary Clinton] became recognized because of the achievements of her husband. That has nothing to do with advancing women’s rights. She’s revered? Has that been established?! But let’s assume she’s revered. What does that have to do with advancing women’s rights? Like being the wife of a powerful man, a woman’s being revered isn’t an aspect of female empowerment. The most traditional societies embrace the idea of a woman who inspires reverence, someone who’s good and worthy of respect.
. . .
We just did the symbolic power of electing a black President. Did we overestimate that? I think we did. Isn’t it time for substance and not mere symbolism? We’ve OD’d on symbolism. What are Hillary’s achievements? Lines on a résumé aren’t the same as accomplishments. In fact, when you’ve had powerful positions, the lack of specific achievements is the opposite of inspiring.
. . .
Oh, wouldn’t it be terrible, wouldn’t hope for the world collapse, if Hillary doesn’t win, which would be undermined if there were a “Benghazi surprise”? You mean if we actually found out what happened in Benghazi?!

Remember when The Washington Post made its reputation through investigative reporting, when it worked hard at uncovering what powerful people were trying to hide?

In one sense, O’Donnell isn’t to blame for what he did. He didn’t claim to be a criminal defense lawyer, knowledgeable in the ways we think, act and work. He is what he purports to be, a talking head on a third-rate cable channel watched by insomniacs and people wearing elaborate hats made of tin foil. But then, these tend to be the types of folks who are most easily misled, most impressionable, as they lack the radar that enables them to distinguish reality from the O’Donnells of the tube. These are the people seeking confirmation bias, validation of their wildest imaginings, and if some guy on TV says so, then so it must be. Proof that they were right all along!
. . .
Indeed, it’s hard to imagine a criminal defense lawyer anywhere who would explain that the only reason a defendant doesn’t testify is because he’s guilty. That’s just crazy. I mean, totally batshit nuts. It’s simply not true.

And yet anyone watching O’Donnell will leave the couch thinking they now know the magic secret of the inside world of criminal defense, and carry that stupidity with them as they speak with friends, teach their children and, pathetically, sit on a jury.

It would be one thing for O’Donnell to hold a foolish opinion if it was just something he trotted out at the occasional cocktail party, but when a guy has a television soapbox, with its inherent credibility as an entertainer paid to fill in the voids between commercials, he can do some serious damage. And no doubt he did.

We don’t need no stinkin’ bill of rights. “Racists” are the new witches, the new heretics.

It’s like a never-ending onslaught of destroying people’s rights lately! Did no one take civics class in high school?? What is wrong with people lately?! Recently, this little piece by Lawrence O’Donnell from MSNBC started circulating on Twitter. And I saw it. And it made my head almost explode.
. . .
This thought process, this complete and utter shitting on the Constitutional rights we’re all guaranteed, this idea that we don’t have to grant “bad” people–people charged w/ crimes–the full panoply of rights and presumptions because we’ve decided we don’t like those bad people…that’s why we’re all in trouble. Eventually, we’ll erode these precious rights down to nothing and everything this country was founded on–all the things that people fought and died for–all those principles will be meaningless. Because we decided we were going to ignore the right to remain silent because only guilty people remain silent.

And, for what it’s worth, if I were ever arrested even if I did nothing wrong, I would 1) not consent to any searches; 2) not agree to talk to police; 3) immediately demand a lawyer to be present for any questioning; and 4) probably wouldn’t testify. You know why?? BECAUSE I CAN. Because it’s my right to do all of those things. And it’s yours, too, despite what blowhards like Lawrence O’Donnell may think.

Already this morning, television news has broadcast the twits of New York City politicians and candidates following the verdict. They have the potential to enlighten, to calm, to inform. Instead, they are pandering and inflaming the passions and ignorance of the public, playing the confirmation bias card.

Whether they too lack a working grasp of our legal system, or know better and just don’t care, is unclear. Either way, a million people could end the day stupider than it began. Is it worth a vote? Don’t answer.

The pro-Trayvon campaign shows how illiberal ‘anti-racism’ has become.
. . .
These accusations of racism might sound radical, but they aren’t. Today, we’re told, the roots of racial conflict are not found in government policy (Obama and others are seen as anti-racist), nor among the elites generally (it is gauche to espouse such views in polite circles), nor even so much among the police. Instead, the blame for racism is put squarely on the shoulders of working-class types like Zimmerman.

There is a terrible irony to the response to the Zimmerman verdict: it is those who profess to be on the side of Martin and justice, who claim to be anti-racist, who are really promoting prejudice and illiberal solutions. The pro-Trayvon lobby promotes explicit prejudice against ignorant jurors, against crazed men carrying guns, against ‘white Hispanics’ and others who fail to appreciate all races. It is also the loudest critic of basic legal principles, such as innocence until proven guilty and reasonable doubt. The whole thing reveals how what now passes for ‘anti-racism’ has become a divisive outlook with authoritarian overtones.

The government should not punish people for their beliefs.
. . .
Double jeopardy.
. . .
Although it was predictable that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People would demand federal charges against Zimmerman after he was acquitted, it is sad to see the American Civil Liberties Union, which should be standing up for the rights of unpopular defendants, jumping on this bandwagon. In a statement issued on Sunday, ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero said “it is imperative that the Department of Justice thoroughly examine whether the Martin shooting was a federal civil rights violation or hate crime.”

In other words, the ACLU is calling for a federal inquiry into an acquitted defendant’s beliefs with the aim of justifying a second prosecution for the same crime. What part of that says “civil liberties” to you?